Frugal Friday’s Workwear Report: Boucle Raglan Sweater
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
I have always lived in places with chilly climates, but this winter has been a lot, even for me. If you’re also on the hunt for cozy sweaters, look no further than Banana Republic Factory. I’m a big fan of their Forever Sweaters for warmer weather or layering under blazers, but when the temperatures are below freezing for weeks on end, I’m reaching for something like this boucle version.
This mauve wine color would look beautiful with gray, navy, or chocolate brown trousers for a business casual look that will keep you warm. This style is also available in three other solid colors and two striped options.
The sweater is $50 at Banana Republic with 20% off at checkout.
Sales of note for 2/6:
- Nordstrom – End of Season Sale — winter styles up to 50% off!
- Ann Taylor – End of season sale, up to 70% off original prices — plus extra 25% off your $175+ purchase.
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off + extra 15% off
- Brooks Brothers – Clearance up to 70% off
- Elie Tahari – Great sale, up to 60% off! This reader-favorite sleeveless silk blouse is down to $50 from $198
- Express – $40 off $120, $75 off $200 (online only).
- J.Crew – Up to 40% off winter classics, + extra 30% off sale styles with code
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything + extra 50% off clearance
- Lo & Sons – Valentine's sale, up to 50% off — reader favorites include this laptop tote, this backpack, and this crossbody
- M.M.LaFleur – Save up to 70% off, dozens of styles now on clearance. Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Neiman Marcus – New sale arrivals, up to 40% off. You can also earn a $35-$700 gift card with purchase of $250-$3000.
- Talbots – Free shipping on $150+, and members earn 3X style points.
Would you put your kids in a large school district that has a bad reputation overall (with terrible reputation for some individual schools) as long as you could attend the best options within it? By local accounts, there are some good schools within the district, but when the complaints about the overall district are for things like mismanagement, underfunding, financial challenges, etc., it’s hard not to think that the problems will trickle down to all schools even if some are doing fine now. Our town has two districts and one is universally regarded as good (it’s where we rent now) and the other has the problems I described, but it’s where most of the townhomes and small SFHs that we could possibly afford are located. The realtor has been telling us that it’s very school-dependent and she wouldn’t rule out whole neighborhoods just because the district itself is bad. Feedback from local moms goes both ways – some say avoid the district at all costs and others say “just make sure it’s ___ school.” I went to a poor, rural public school myself that I wouldn’t call “bad” but I do want more opportunities for my son – I could never take advanced classes, for example, and there were no clubs or activities except for sports.
FWIW, class sizes are larger in the “bad district” as a rule. As an example, our current zoned elementary school in the “good district” has a student/teacher ratio of 22.5/1 compared to 28/1 in what’s called a “good” elementary school in the “bad district.” Per-pupil spending is about $15K vs. just $2K.
Ugh, whoop, meant this for moms page. But I’ll read any responses.
Childhood outcomes are very tied to parent income and involvement. I know that’s not cool or PG or whatever to say but it’s the truth. If you’re an involved parent and your kids are properly nourished they will be fine. As a child I went from the worst school in my city to the best and there really wasn’t much difference aside from some fancy computer labs and a lack of poverty. I didn’t have academic difficulties.
Maybe this is more true in the city? I always think of physicians who took jobs in rural parts of the countries and thought their own educations and resources could make up for the weaknesses of the local schools.
I have a friend with a PhD homeschooling her kids on a farm because of school quality. Family / eldercare (after to many home care aides were having felony-level elder abuse and elder financial abuse and med theft issues) ties her to an area but she is able to remote consult a bit, elder care a bit, and home school a bit. At least her kids will know math and science very well (and she was a dual math / elementary ed major originally).
I feel like I hoped that this would be true in the end when I sent my kids to a large county school system. But even in elementary school, classes were too chaotic to learn well in and we spent so much on tutoring and remediation to catch them up that private school tuition at least in K-5 would have been worth it and less schedule chaos for this working mom. Kicking myself now.
Must protect your children from the poor chaotic ones. 🙄
Chaos kills learning for all. And it’s cumulative. It’s not fair to kids trying to learn, which is why charters have taken off. Rich people always have options. The rest of us are desperate. A stable family who reads doesn’t have the bandwidth to duplicate everything at home. Homeschooling isn’t an option. We need for schools to get the schooling done and many just can’t.
I thought we were talking about student/teacher ratios. But I wonder how fast you’d be running to HR if the environment you were expected to function in at work resembled a genuinely chaotic classroom.
A bad school has 4 kindergarten classrooms and only 2 5th grade classrooms. So look at a yearbook and count how bad the attrition is over the years they are in elementary school. That was my kids’ school and we should have paid better attention to people hitting the exits as soon as a better option opened up.
I think it’s sometimes a mistake to think of bad schools in terms of what a bad school was when we were kids. So much of an education degree is focused on classroom management strategies, and a lot of wonderful teachers are focused on trying to help kids get through the day and hoping to make some positive difference in their difficult lives, while understandably deprioritizing academics. Teachers are not all as academically prepared themselves as they used to be. And then there’s bad pedagogy (Sold a Story is just one example; the critical thinking and skills vs. content wars was another; and that’s all pre-pandemic and pre-AI!).
My sense is that this largely true in elementary school but a lack of opportunities can really hinder kids in middle and high school. Not just from the perspective of getting into a good college, although it’s definitely a factor for that, but also in terms of having the chance to explore and figure out what they love. I want my kids to have things like foreign language, band, theatre and AP classes available to them at school.
Yes — my kids never had a foreign language until high school. I was really shocked at that. And one supposed art “special” class never had a teacher hired for it, so they just say in the auditorium and art became just doodling on paper with a series of subs proctoring what was always just a lot of kids goofing off.
Counterpoint: a friend from high school who became a professional visual artist spent most of her days doodling through her academic classes. It was an inner fire that made her draw, not a class.
This. More of an issue when they’re older
How does the district determine which neighborhoods go to which schools and can that change? Do multiple elementary schools feed into one high school?
Is there another town or district nearby with better schools where you could afford a house?
In middle or high school, are there options for magnet schools or other specialized schools?
Overall the funding issues would probably concern me enough to not roll the dice on the “bad” district as, like you, I want my kids to have access to specialized classes and extra curriculars. $2k per student is really, really low.
The city district in my area is like this – major district-wide issues but also some of the best schools in the state. Research the process for getting into the “good” schools to know your chances. I would also look into teacher and staff turnover. In my city district, you have to apply and get accepted, or get a lottery slot to get one of the good ones.
Ultimately I live in a suburb with an excellent district where teachers love to work. One of my kids has special needs, and the stable set of therapists she loves is worth its weight in gold to me.
If you have a gifted kid, the single most important question is which district will put them in a separate class or a magnet school.
The per child spend and classroom ratios would give me pause. Parental involvement is great, but it is hard to equalize a spend that is 7.5X the spend for the poorer district. There are lots of opportunities for language, art, music, filed trips etc that are unlikely to be available in the poorer district. Also, what happens at the middle school/junior high level and in high school? You might be planning a second move before then, but time flies fast and if the later stage schools are problematic (and middle/junior high is where things really fall apart), I would have grave reservations about buying in the lower ranked district.
Example : my kid got to go on exactly one field trip in all of middle school and it was to a local art museum we had been to a million times before. At a different public school, a friend’s daughter got to go to NYC and then to Europe in high school (high teacher and parent and student involvement can’t beat only one parent trying).
I am pretty sure the parents paid for that travel.
Right, but they had the option of things they could have gone on and pooled resources on and exposed their kids to. Plenty of kids in band, etc. at other schools get to travel for parades and competition. Ditto athletes. But not random kids who want to expand their horizons unless there is a critical mass of like-minded parents and teachers willing to go and chaperone and plan.
Yeah – if we were talking about a $10k district and a $15k district, that would be a different conversation. Think of it in terms of: $2k/student spending means the 30-kid classroom is covered by $60k TOTAL annual spending. What are teacher salaries? There is not enough for even basic “extras” at 60k/classroom/year.
How are they running schools with total per-pupil spending of $2K? That won’t even cover very low teachers’ salaries and benefits, much less all the other staff and costs of operating the school.
I might want to check if they’re fully accredited or if they’ve lost accreditation.
OP here and that’s the ratio quoted on Schooldigger. The bad district is HUGE and covers multiple towns, including half of my town. I’ve heard rumors that it has never managed to pass a school bond for fundraising, unlikely neighboring districts, but I need to look into that more.
Schooldigger and other school aggregator and rating websites often have incomplete or out of date info. $2k per student is so low that it almost can’t be correct. See if your state, county, or district publishes this data somewhere. Many (all?) states have requirements for that info to be available somewhere. In Illinois (for example) there are district report cards that have a ton of data.
Agree with this. Maybe that is some local funding, but here, schools get funding from the county and state and Title 1 schools (generally poor ones) get extra federal funding (even now, I think). Disabled students often have special funding that follows them (e.g., blind students, deaf students, some learning disabilities).
How old are your children? Class size is a stronger differentiator when they are very young. As they’re older, I would be more focused on opportunities and find that the school, rather than the particular district, is the bigger deal. For example, I would rather send my kids to a bigger school in the “worse” district if it means they might have greater class subject diversity (French, gifted math, photography) versus a smaller school in the “better” district that can’t compete (only German or Spanish, no photography, etc.) Are they heavily involved in sports? How does that compare? I don’t think spending per kid makes as much of a difference unless you’re talking truly awful versus truly great.
I went to a “bad” school district but the “good” elementary and middle school. In high school, I had lots of opportunities to be placed in AP/honors classes and join clubs with other kids who had high ambitions. So many teachers who did their absolute best to see us succeed.
But with the per student spend in the “bad” district, do AP/honors classes and clubs even exist?
This. With that level of spending, opportunities are going to be severely limited.
Your town seems like a lose/lose. What about neighboring towns?
I would not trust the realtor on this; but I would weight parents with kids at certain schools saying they’re good – and ask about why? A large district is always going to have more “better-than-average schools” *and* more “worse than average schools” – and all else equal, large districts are going to have more special opportunities like magnet schools, an IB program, wider sports, etc especially at the high school level, if that’s your primary concern.
On the other hand – $2k/student is really really low. This is in the US, right? Honestly if that’s true, I would do a lot to buy in the $15k district.
Where I am, the calculus is how much more house do I buy to get into good public schools and keep the equity v buying less house and paying for private school. If the former isn’t an option for you, I’d just go private.
Right now I have kids in the best local public schools in a large county school district. The problem is that “everyone” who can choose knows this and has moved here to try and get in within the districts of these local public schools – so my kids schools are nearly 200% enrolled and covered in trailers and leaving other schools in the county bereft of students to fill seats.
So guess which local public schools have a target on them for the re-districting – excuse me, student assignment study – coming up? There is almost no way to get through 12 years of public school without being affected by a such a study, and the results.
Your kid will be fine, but the drama playing out is terrible and hard to ignore and will change patterns of enrollment and fund distribution too. So even if you make a choice for the best school in a bad district- things can and will change. I don’t know if that helps or not.
how old is your kid? things can change quickly for the good or for the bad. we are at a good school within a not great district, but we our only other option is private school. we are also in elementary school where the schools are a bit smaller, but many people do private for middle and high school bc the schools are just too big. can you just keep renting?
We did this, but the per pupil spending was not nearly as low as yours. We chose to stay in a large city school system as opposed to moving to the wealthier neighboring county. This was primarily due to low housing inventory when we were trying to move. At the time we were looking to move, “Moms for Liberty” was very active in that county, and I kept hearing stories about what pressure cookers the schools were– like kids having panic attacks in middle schools, etc.
In the city school system, the focus is on moving to an area with a good elementary school. The “good” elementary schools rank on par with the neighboring wealthy county. However, I still hear them referred to as “bad” because they have economically disadvantaged students and students of color. Overall, the elementary school we are zoned for seems to have about the same resources as the neighboring county but is just not as new or fancy.
Middle school is where things start to diverge– the city school system has an emphasis on school choice and tracking students, so traditionally, smart students (anyone with over a B average) would leave the neighborhood school for a magnet school, private, or move to the neighboring county. This lowered the test scores of the neighborhood middle schools even if they weren’t “bad.” Our neighborhood middle and high school offer AP classes, band, etc. However, they have a reputation for having rough kids (drugs, guns, etc.). There has been a lot of growth/gentrification in this area though, so that may not be the case by the time our son is in middle school. Our son is starting K next year– we plan to reevaluate at some point in elementary school and possibly move again before middle school.
To contrast though– our “bad” school district funds kids at $12k per pupil. The neighboring wealthy county funds kids at $9k. The “bad” school district has many more ESL and disabled students, which I suspect explains the greater amount of funds.
A similar district in my area closed two elementary schools and one middle school due to a major budget shortfall. Another district re-districts zones for elementary schools and middle schools about every 5 years to accommodate population changes and address space issues. You are not guaranteed to remain in the good school in a bad district.
Our area has to do this every 10 years and chaotically manages the boundary changes and where schools are so bad that they are half-empty and the district tries to remedy this with partial magnet programs to use its space less-awfully. A high school building may be repurposed for something else, or vice versa. There is no land left where they may need more schools, but no one wants their kid bussed somewhere further away.
Yes. I live in a city where the reputation of the school district is, “well it used to be better before X kids enrolled in large numbers.” Honestly, we had a great K-5 experience, an OK middle school experience (COVID), and a pretty good high school experience. Touring schools, meeting principals and parents, and attending public events at the schools were way more informative and useful than some crank in my neighborhood posting, “OMG, there was a FIGHT in the girl’s bathroom” on Facebook.
Even in good school districts, there is mismanagement, underfunding, and plenty of financial challenge. But these things can change a LOT between K and 12.
How terrible that one school essentially next door to another receives 2k vs. 12k per student. What is wrong with this “democratic” country?
There has never been democracy here.
No. Your child only has one shot at getting a good education which will basically determine their success in life. Don’t rationalize cheap ing out on some random below average public school already known to be terrible.
WWYD? I’ve ended up with tickets I won’t be using to a very high-demand concert, and I can’t decide if I should try and make some money off them or let them go for face value. Never been in this situation before.
I think it’s reasonable to make a little money for the time and effort but if it were me I wouldn’t go wild with it. I would do a slight markup and call it a day.
I’d offer them at face to friends or colleagues first.
+1. If no one I know wants to buy them at fave value, then I would probably do a slight mark up on the Ticketmaster re-sale platform.
Depending how in demand sell for 25% ish above face value and be done with it. The TM resale platform is so easy I’ll never sell tickets any other way again. Selling to friends is always such a hassle trying to make sure they pay you and stuff, no thanks.
Or your friends aren’t crappy and they Venmo you asap
Some people are good friends and crappy with follow through. It’s fine to acknowledge failings in your friends without throwing them away.
Why wouldn’t you just… not hand over the tickets until they pay?
The risk is that they don’t pay and it’s the last minute and you still have the tickets and have to issue an ultimatum–pay now or I am listing them for sale.
I usually look at the Ticketmaster resale site and price at the lower end of what seats in my section are worth. This almost always guarantee they sell and sometimes that means I’ve made a little bit extra on the ticket. I’ve never tried to make scalper money or anything on them. It’s just so much easier than trying to connect with people I know which is what I have done in the past.
I give them away to a friend/family.
Based on yesterday’s aging conversation, wanted to share this. I try (not always successfully!) to be positive about my aging (even though I’m very much not where I wanted to be at my age). But, whst really counts is the life in your years. So, each night I think of how today mattered: Did I have fun? Did I help someone? Did I connect with someone?
And if I didn’t, I do a quick donation to a local charity to ensure I’ve at least helped someone.
That way, even if I had a crappy day I know I’ve made a positive impact on this world.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but women need to have fun every day. Not only do they deserve this for themselves, even if they have significant responsibilities, but it helps their families have more fun too. Time for fun is so often an afterthought instead of a top priority on the calendar.
Oh, I certainly do my best to have fun every day! I’m a SINK with reasonable hours, so I have time for fun social plans and hobbies and whatnot, but sometimes the day is a drag and thats just the way it is.
So on those days I make sure I’ve helped someone out or had a really nice interaction with someone
I love this idea. Thank you for sharing!
(Not sure why you’re getting people pushing back on the idea of wanting to help others. This board never ceases to amaze me.)
Agreed. Too many people don’t let themselves have fun regularly. Life is short. Enjoy it.
Your “Creator” did not bring you into this world to not enjoy it.
Everyone has different values. You value fun, other people value being of use in the world. I guess it’s like the cricket and the grasshopper parable.
I value enjoying my life #1 (how sad to live a life you don’t enjoy) and helping others #2. They’re not mutually exclusive.
I’ve also often sacrificed #1 to fulfill #2. I learned the lesson to “not set yourself on fire to keep others warm” the hard way.
These are not mutually exclusive. I work hard and give back, and also try to have fun regularly, in part because it supports my physical and mental well-being, which makes me more effective at work and in my volunteer roles.
Making sure you have fun doesn’t mean you’re not also contributing and doing work. It means you find a little time regularly to remember that life is more than just your job and getting dinner on the table (though both are really important).
Hard agree!
I skip those conversations because a good chunk of them are “you will look like an old lady if you don’t cover your gray”. Well, imo if you do cover your gray, you will look like an old lady with dyed hair. To each their own, but I’m just not going to engage with the hair dye cheerleaders because they and I will never agree. Also, I don’t have the time for high-end professional hair maintenance, and while I have the money, I’d rather spend it on things I love.
To each her own. I got my first grays at 12 and was coloring my hair to cover them up by 19. My hair was completely white by the time I was 35. It is simply not natural for the mother of a kindergartener to have white hair. I spend a lot of time and money getting my roots skillfully touched up every 4 weeks, and it’s worth it to me. I am far too young to look striking with white hair, and it would be a huge detriment to me professionally to look 15 years older than I actually am.
I do think the calculus is different if you prematurely grey. I’m 35 with no greys (something my partner is very salty about).
In fairness, if you’re getting grays as a teenager, it COULD be natural for a mother of a kindergartner to have white or gray hair if we only let it. . . be the change you want to see in the world.
Maybe she doesn’t want that.
My mom was the gray haired mom of a kindergartner (had kids in mid 30s, pretty much completely gray by 40), and she made “little gray haired lady” her whole identity for DECADES. No, thanks.
definitely a highly relevant example, that.
A monthly hair appointment is a thing I would never prioritize. I’m sorry you’re forced to spend so much time fighting yourself.
🙄
hahaha wow
Hey, I don’t know if you know this, but you can make your own choices and push back on the typical beauty standard for women generally without being a jerk to individual women who make different choices than you.
I’m sorry that you’ve forced yourself to spend so much judging other women for doing what makes them feel good when it doesn’t affect you at all.
It’s a privilege to skip hair maintenance. I’m 52 and having to job hunt after a corporate restructure. Ageism is real. You can pretend it doesn’t matter and “to each their own.” But gray hair is a clear signal of being older, whether we want to admit it or not. It’s a lot harder to “pass” as younger.
Your age is literally on the internet. There’s no way to hide it from recruiters and interviewers. Can you come across as “young 52”? Sure, but you don’t need dyed brown hair to do that. It’s more important to be up to date on tech, your industry, current idioms, speech etc. But if you think you’re hiding your age, you’re fooling yourself.
You are so naive, at 10:52. The comments about “fooling” anyone yesterday are disgusting and misogynistic and so is yours. People form their impressions of others within seconds of meeting them and that has nothing to do with competence. It is just how the human brain works no matter what you tell yourself. Some women have great skin, good metobolsim after menopause, and a full head of smooth hair that looks good grey depending on the shade and the coloring of their skin and eyes. Others have sallow skin, thinning frizzy hair and menobellies. If you are mad of those of us in the second category for trying to look a bit better, then maybe ask yourself why that is. Do whatever you want but don’t be a mean girl.
12:39, are you really saying that looks are what matter professionally, and professional success (however that’s defined) has nothing to do with competence? Just WOW. Because I don’t even think about what my coworkers look like, I’m just interested in their competence.
10:52: Girl, YOU form your impressions of people based on how they look and you are lying to yourself if you say different. IT is basic human psychology. At this point, I hope you do look good because you are dumb.
Employers have your resume and have a good idea of your age. You aren’t hiding anything.
It’s not really about the number. It’s the impression of whether someone has vitality or lacks it. So looking young matters more.
Acting young and vital is more important than dying your hair and everyone knows that. I live in a community where all women wear wigs, none of the wigs are gray, and you can tell the old women because they walk creakily and act old. The hair hides nothing. Also, no one’s skincare is good enough to look 42 at 52 (even though EVERYONE on this blog thinks they look 10 years younger than their actual age, lol. Like Lake Wobegon, we’re all above average lol).
I think looking vital is extremely different from looking young. I know a woman who is approaching 80 and she mountain bikes every day. She’s never going to pass for 60 but she doesn’t have to – she’s full of life and spark. If she wears makeup, I can’t tell.
But it’s not about the person with brown hair looking young so much as the person with gray hair clearly not.
This board skews educated and wealthy. It is entirely possible that most women here look younger than average, simply because looking good as you age is a function of money, health, and discipline.
Looking great when you’re young is usually a function of luck and not messing up a good thing. Attractive young women can wear a potato sack and lip gloss and be smoking hot.
I’m 45. At this age, it’s a matter of compounding lifetime habits. I’ve kept a very consistent weight; I’m in great shape; I eat very well; I’ve used sunscreen since I was a teenager; and I moderate my alcohol intake. People are floored when they hear that I’m 45. *Part* of aging is accumulated stress on the body.
Most of the upper-middle class athletes I know look fantastic for their age.
Okay. I’ve never been full of life or spark in my life, but if I put more effort into my appearance it really does seem to help compensate. I can easily believe that people who are higher energy don’t need have as much to compensate for.
I love this!!!
Love this! I think we were brought into this earth to a) help others b) enjoy this life.
I think some people live in fantasy land and some people live on reality. Would it be nice if how you look had no bearing on your earning potential or ability to move easily in the world? Absolutely. Is that the reality? Nope. So stop shading people who understand this.
Most people don’t have jobs where this matters in the slightest and we’re tired of being fed made-up scenarios where artifice is important for job advancement. Be clean, be smart, and say timely and relevant sh*t, and you’ll have respect at your job. Dyed hair won’t save you.
But how else will the marketers of hair dye, botox, and shapewear survive if we don’t believe this? Often I wonder how many commenters here are paid influencers.
Agreed. When I first started reading here as a recent graduate, I was convinced that all of this stuff was absolutely mandatory or I would never work again, but it hasn’t been true in the slightest. My level of low beauty maintenance would make many of you gasp with horror but I’m getting promoted and I’m happy in my career and in my marriage and with my family. I’m working on getting my fitness back postpartum but for me that’s a size 12.
If you’re postpartum, you are likely young enough that ageism hasn’t hit yet.
Fatphobia affects all ages
Fatphobia exists but again, if my life is going great as is, why should I make myself 700% more miserable just to be thinner? Where’s the real gain for me? I’m already working, married, and healthy.
Signed , militant frump who resents others trying to still look nice.
There is a loooot more nuance than this. When I was younger I made myself corporate barbie. I was the aesthetic ideal, an itty bitty size 0, perfectly manicured, made-up, and groomed, with impeccably tailored suits. But ultimately even looking perfect didn’t make people like me, it made them tolerate me. Now I look like a normal human and they just tolerate me slightly less.
For some people, looks are an important contributor their professional and social success. Other people are incredibly successful with average looks, actual age reflected, crooked teeth, etc. Maybe they are just smarter or better. So stop acting like everyone is the same.
Please provide an example.
I’m not that poster, but I can think of literally two dozen examples in my personal and professional life. I’m not going to dox those people just for you but they definitely exist and I’m proud to associate with them.
Of what–be specific.
I will. I have a dear friend who absolutely can. not. be. bothered. with anything but the most basic grooming. She’s plus size, doesn’t wear makeup, doesn’t dye her hair, certainly no Botox or anything like that, even has moles on her face with hair sprouting from them. And guess what? Everybody loves her and she’s super successful personally and professionally. Meanwhile I do pretty much All the Things (dye my hair, Botox, have had Procedures) and put in a lot of time in my appearance. And I’m doing fine, too. Go figure.
Look at broadcast news reporters. There’s a reason very few have gray hair, are heavy or otherwise buck the conventional norms of not looking too “old.” And, no, if you’re post-partum you’re not in the demo where it starts to matter more. It’s not an either capable or keeping up hair equation either. It’s a “yes and” —all things being mostly equal, where will the bias most likely help/hurt. Naive to think otherwise.
Kayleigh MnEnamy and Jen Psaki are both very smart, educated, articulate women (Harvard Law for Kayleigh, W&M for Jen).
I imagine that they got where they are because they are also very, very attractive. They are a different type of attractive, but I think that being attractive *and* smart is a killer combination for them.
Thank god we’re not all broadcast news reporters (although Lesley Stahl, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, and many others were professionally active into old age).
Broadcast news is not a normal job (it’s putting one’s face on TV every day!), and professionals where I live don’t really style themselves that much like newscasters either.
But I’m not a broadcast news reporter! I’m also not a model. We don’t need to act like the standards in some industries apply to all women.
Some women can get away with being like SA’s example. The ones I know are mostly well-connected Ivy League grads with a cultivated reputation for being quirky, and they are in fields that reward quirkiness.
Fine, I’ll bite. Marketing, definitely sales, Heck, pretty much any position where you’re interviewing against others who have almost the same skills and experience but one of you is going to be a more conventionally pleasing representation of the company.
Trial lawyer here. My look contributes to perception of my credibility and competence.
If looks are all you have, then yes, lean into them. If you have other gifts, prioritize those.
Sometimes you have to meet a certain bar in terms of presentation before anyone will consider your other gifts.
I commented upthread but I wanted to add that the norms are very different in outdoorsy circles in NorCal.m where I live. The women I know aren’t in hair appointments on a Saturday – they’re hiking, skiing, fishing, you name it. People tend to go grey naturally and they wear older clothes that you would never see in a magazine. If anyone’s getting Botox, it sure doesn’t look like it. This is just one niche; there are plenty of others where this is also true. There truly are plenty of lifestyles where people are filling their time with other things. Why would it matter if I have some gray hairs if it’s covered by a ski helmet?
Yeah; love Silicon Valley for this. When I do professional women’s events in LA, it’s like having been rushed against my will into the world’s meanest sorority.
LA is definitely more image-obsessed but there’s PLENTY of mean girl behavior in Silicon Valley. It just doesn’t focus on looks.
Well, my relatives in Portola Valley, Atherton, Palo Alto and Woodside are all active skiing, cycling, hiking etc with lots of casual but quality clothes. All of them wear the no make-up make-up look, with no grey hair in sight unless it is part of a pricey baylage/highlights situation that is even harder to maintain, with excellent but subtle skin care with injections and more over time. Your circle must be different. If anything, the pressure is higher for women to fit in culturally and look great in this male dominated area. The only exception are my peers in medicine/academia.
Totally agreed. I am a law firm partner in SF and your circle describes mine to a tee. The “look” that people are going for is different from what you will see in LA, but it is no less intentional or designed to convey youthfulness. I don’t know any women my age (mid-40s) who are going gray “naturally” except through highly cultivated efforts. (For instance, one of my colleagues has long, beautiful dark hair that is intentionally streaked with silver — and I promise she spends just as many hours in a chair to achieve that as I do to cover my greys.)
+1. My experience of silicon valley isn’t that women’s looks are irrelevant to their success; it’s just that the “successful” look is different – ie. must look extremely put together but casually. Like Stanford duck syndrome, as an aesthetic. It’s also one of the places where I know the most men feeling like they need botox, hairdye, etc for their job. Haven’t lived in LA though
I get my hair done during the week every 6-8 weeks. That has nothing to do with my Saturdays.
I just turned 49. This is maybe a weird way to look at things, but I’m at the point in my life where I’m grateful to be alive. Old age is a privilege that not everyone enjoys. I read stories every day about people my age or younger dying of cancer or heart attacks or other things. This time I have with my family and friends is a gift.
Most people do not come to this realization early enough in life. They are lucky and they don’t even know it.
I think sometimes it helps to remember what you have now that you didn’t have when you were in your twenties, outside of youth and looks. For me, I get to own my own home and not live with a random roommate. I get to have kids. I have more wisdom about relationships and the workplace, even if I’m not always perfect. I have a much better job. I am no longer in student-loan debt, etc.
Also, while young people clearly have an advantage with beauty, I do think beauty has to do with your character, even if that’s cliche. Think of a mean-girl model. You can be beautiful and very ugly at the same time. I look around at the old ladies at church, and they are truly beautiful because they are kind and well-meaning. Our media culture is all about beauty, but real life has more nuance to it.
I wonder if the commenters here talking about the importance of looks are literally the hiring managers who won’t interview a woman with gray hair or who is dressed in less than the current styles. They sound like the mean girls.
It does make you wonder, doesn’t it.
I actually thought it was the opposite: the ones who are shaming women for looking good (and not even in a high maintenance girly girl way!) would never hire an attractive woman.
I promise there’s no discrimination for looking good.
I promise that jealousy is real.
I agree, 1:02. They assume that because a woman has highlights she is shallow. Or the well put together woman will make them feel less secure. They are so petty.
I don’t think so – I’m also getting the vibe that those posters are looking for cover for appearance-related judgments they’ve made of qualified candidates.
No, we are the women who notice the difference in how men treat us when we wear heels and can look them in the eye.
LoL
Right. It’s not that those trying to do whatever they can to combat ageism are any less outdoorsy or leading fulfilling lives. Pretending that looks have no sway is nice but not at all the reality with most things. I’ve lived at wildly different sizes. I can definitely tell you that being closer to 150 felt a lot different in treatment from strangers than 300. Was I still the same person? Yes. Wasn’t everyone? Of course not. But bias exists, whether you want to admit it or not.
Hoo boy ain’t that the truth! I have lost a lot of weight and it’s so weird because people treat you SO MUCH DIFFERENT. It’s both fantastically great to be treated well at last, and fantastically infuriating to realize the not-so-good treatment wasn’t all in your head.
I was the OP yesterday and I almost didn’t post because I was afraid of it turning into a laundry list of do’s and don’ts for women in their 40s and 50s. I’m comfortable with the amount of effort I’m putting in. I’m unlikely to do more because that doesn’t align with my priorities or values in any way.
I was really looking for thoughts on self-acceptance, and some of you had some really wise thoughts. Even if I did ALL THE THINGS, aging comes for us all. I’m not sure why it’s controversial that my face looks different at 45 than it did at 35. That said, it still surprises me at times!
We are looking to buy a condo because that’s what’s in our price range in our high cost of living area. We found one that we like but the HOA has gone up at least $200 just in the last two years and it’s now over $700. Obviously that gives me pause. We’re going to look at the disclosures and the HOA documents but I would love any advice for red flags to look for. I know that low reserves are an obvious one, but what else should I be asking about? This world is new to me. Located in the Bay Area.
What does it cover? Given how much the cost of everything has gone up recently, that doesn’t seem that shocking to me. In CA, insurance alone has gone up enough to explain that. I’d also make sure you can even get insurance. One of the things that tipped us to moving out of state when we were deciding between buying the condo we were renting and leaving CA was that it was pretty much impossible to get insurance, and we weren’t in a high fire risk area. This was before the LA fires, not sure if it’s better or worse now.
We sold a second home in California about a year ago and the sale almost fell apart because the buyer had such difficult time procuring insurance. In the end, they got it but it was very, very expensive.
It covers pool, green belt, tennis courts, exterior, and exterior insurance – I think. Waiting on the docs today.
Well that is a lot of items to cover/insure.
I know it isn’t the Bay Area, but my sibling lives in a modest co-op building in a less trendy part of Brooklyn and pays ~1200 per month for his condo fees. And I think insurance is more pricey in California.
Definitely get all the info on the finances of the building.
That isn’t THAT high, relatively speaking, but the % increase is fast – that happened to us with our condo over 10 years, not over 2, from 2005-2015, coincidentally the exact same numbers, but in Philly, not SF. We sold and bought a downtown rowhouse which has been on average less per year to maintain than we were paying in fees.
Are you able to get records of the condo board decisionmaking and older history of rate increases?
OP, copies of the HOA financials and minutes were required by my lender.
Read the minutes for the last few years to see whether they are deferring decisions on other big expenditures, and what their long-range planning looks like. I agree that insurance or taxes alone could be driving that but you need to understand it. You also need to see how many units are rented out – I forget what the tipping point number is (50%? 40%?) but there’s a magic threshold where traditional mortgage lenders won’t lend anymore, which can kill your resale options.
Also, HOA fees never ever go down so make sure you are comfortable with that in your budget. A friend’s HOA fees went from $150/month to $1500/month in three years – a combination of a special assessment for major expenditures plus they needed to build up their reserves. It was enough to turn me off HOA purchases forever.
My advice is do not buy where there’s an HOA. It’s impossible to control – when it’s your home, you can defer maintenance or do the projects required. With an HOA, you’re at the absolute mercy of the other homeowners. Especially beware of different income levels in a building.
Not always an option in the Bay Area
Oh I know, I’m in the Bay Area. I’m also a big fan of owning over renting but a condo/HOA here is the stuff of nightmares.
I would add, it may make sense to do it if you buy something very desirable that’s likely to appreciate in a short period of time (highly likely in the Bay Area). If you do, just plan to sell in 5 years so you don’t get stuck with a property you can’t get out of. And put the money into making it nice for resale. You’ll want to get out and you can turn a profit.
OP here and I do have all those misgivings, but the Bay Area is a really tough market. This condo is the first thing that we’ve seen that we could actually see ourselves living in and enjoying in our price range. It’s a great layout in the school district we like and it seems to have a good local rep. I’ve made a lot of decisions motivated by fear in the past and I’m concerned that writing off all HOAs would be more of the same. I think this time, I really want to do my due diligence on this exact HOA before making the decision. But your point is definitely well noted nonetheless.
I lived in a condo building with a lot of deferred maintenance to the structure; the boards had wanted to keep HOAs low for years to accomodate people on fixed incomes.
You want to see the last reserve study, 24 months of HOA board meeting minutes, ask whether there have been special assessments or loans taken out by the HOA (this should also be in the meeting minutes), find out what the reserve fund is.
Do a quick G00gle search for condo deferred maintenance how to discover.
Due to the state insurance crisis, the cost of condo insurance has driven up costs, so probably not specific to your condo. And they’re scheduled to go up again this year.
Outlook search doesn’t seem to work anymore. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong or if it’s a system thing. Has anyone mastered this? Even advanced search will not pull emails that I 100% know should be included (example, emails sent to my assistant between two dates, comes up with zero results).
This is happening to me too and I thought it was just my firm’s poor IT, but good to know (I guess) that it’s happening to someone else too! I had luck looking for the weirdest word – so I was looking for “New Mexico” as a phrase but it was pulling EVERYTHING that included “new” so I looked for the firm name like “smithjones.com” and then it found them.
I’m very interested to see if anyone has any good answers on this one, because I was having exactly this problem yesterday! I spent way too much time trying to find an explanation I know I had sent to a client and ended up having to draft it again from scratch for another client. I did some googling but did not come up with a good solution.
I haven’t mastered it and have also had problems with it, so I don’t think it’s just a you thing.
This is the best use case for the paid version of copilot I have found.
Search was solved decades ago. LLM has nothing to add. But AI may be the reason it doesn’t work right now.
We added in a ton of AI and now nothing works and Outlook crashes all the time.
Search worked decades ago when it could be guided with boolean operators. Now? It is based on feelings, concepts, and completely random and unrelated AI suggestions, with no reliable repeatability.
well, all I can say is that Outlook search doesn’t and has never worked well and Copilot does
LOL, no.
Are you searching on your computer? If so, when you click on the seach bar, there is a pull down menu that populates directly to the left of the search bar. If I put it on “All Mailboxes” or “All Outlook Items” instead of “Current Folder”, I seem to get all the results (even if I think/know that the email I am looking for is in my inbox / current folder).
This happens to me once a year or so and our IT person needs to reindex my email.
On a Mac it’s possible to reindex Outlook files on your own. Not sure about Windows.
Outlook search is totally useless. Even when it does have results, it puts irrelevant stuff at the top–like if I specifically search for messages where the sender is Jane Doe, it gives me 50 messages that she was cc’d on and then maybe two she sent at the bottom.
And one from 2023, just to keep things lively.
Truth.
When you think about (or tell someone) your salary, do you include bonus or just base compensation? I’m in not in an industry where my bonus varies wildly, so I tend to include it.
I don’t tell people about my salary other than anonymously here.
Mentally, I think about my base comp. I have received my full bonus every single year, but since it is at my employer’s discretion and not based in any quantifiable way on my performance, I don’t count on it in my budget.
The only time I would think about base, bonus, and benefits in my total comp package is when moving jobs. That whole package approach has resulted in some meaningful money-in-pocket increases for me over my career.
My bonus is between 40-50% of my annual compensation, so I would definitely give an all-inclusive number if I was talking to a recruiter or similar; an potential offer couldn’t be competitive if I didn’t.
monthly cashflow and general budgeting, base only
for purposes of thinking about a job change or tax planning, with bonus
+1. My bonus is paid out annually, it’s relatively small percentage of my salary, and the amount varies. Mentally that money doesn’t exist until it hits my bank account. But there’s a floor so I would consider it when job hunting.
I don’t talk about my salary much, but if I did, I think of it as $ base with a 20% bonus target. I do not figure my bonus into day to day household budget, but around now (bonus payout in March) I start thinking about xyz thing I want to spend that money on.
Happy Friday to all my ladies here who know they are correct, and facing brick walls that don’t want to, or won’t acknowledge it.
May what ever brick wall you are facing come crumbling down. And you have vindication that you were right all along.
There is a story here and I would love to hear it.